The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

stuck pixels

Rich ordered an ASUS Zenbook from Amazon. It wasn’t cheap, totaling $1415 including tax. When it arrived, it had a stuck pixel. No one wants to drop that much money on a computer with a stuck pixel, so he sent it back to ASUS to have the display fixed. The company has a guarantee that their computers won’t have this kind of defect, after all. He waited patiently for the computer to come back. It didn’t. He became less patient. ASUS has given him two different explanations for why they won’t let his computer come home, and they’ve had it for a month and a half when their own policies state that they won’t hold on to a customer’s computer for more than two weeks. [More]

We’re a little skeptical about it, but here are a few programs that claim to be able to fix stuck pixels and decrease plasma/LCD burn in. The basic idea is that the program will rejuvenate the pixels by turning them on and off 60 times a second. You can use it on your computer monitor, or hook up your computer to output to any device experiencing these malfunctions.

Part of

Founded in 2005, Consumerist® is an independent source of consumer news and information published by Consumer Media LLC, a not-for-profit subsidiary of Consumer Reports.